Hawaii resident Gale Pooley took on supervillain Thanos of the “Avengers” film series over the issue of resource scarcity and population control, at a Grassroot Institute of Hawaii event on Maui, Monday, Sept. 9. Pooley is an economist and associate...

After the great success of the “Avengers” movies, the internet was full of people explaining that Thanos, the villain of the series, had a point. For those of you who have managed to escape the omnipresence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thanos was a powerful alien...

This commentary was originally published Sept. 10, 2019, in The Maui News. Maui County residents have long suffered from a lack of affordable housing, but county officials have continually denied permits to home developers who won’t promise that the units they build...

When we talk about why so many Hawaii residents are leaving the state, we usually think about young people just starting out. But those aren’t the only ones we are losing. The “brain drain” also has hurt us when it comes to critical professions. For example, the...

Discussions about the minimum wage tend to overlook an obvious fact: Lowering the cost of living would make everyone’s pay go further, especially the less fortunate. How much further? Simply getting to the point where a dollar has its full spending power would be a...

It’s probably not news to you that the federal Jones Act requires all goods shipped between U.S. ports to be on ships built, owned and flagged in the U.S. and crewed mostly by Americans. You probably also are aware of the many absurdities it produces — like how it’s...